Why the 'Research' in Keyword Research Matters
Friday, 18 December 2009 10:22
On more than one occasion I've seen 'Quality of Content' emphasized over Keyword Research. I've even read individuals instructing others that you don't even need to worry about keywords...
"Just write Quality Content," they say!
Yeah.. don't we wish it was that easy for everyone. 
There are two instances though that this is a fine attitude:
- If you don't have a well constructed page that delivers in terms of content, there's no point in optimizing for anything. You have to have content your market wants and your visitors are seeking. And it has to convert into a profitable result. Even if that's just establishing your authority a little more.
- You are an established authority and your website gets massive traffic, has huge numbers of inbounds, you have a huge social presence on the web... etc.. Then odds are a lot of things you post will have an automatic engine in place to give you enough juice to rank for a lot of stuff naturally.
- OK.. 3 instances.... You're lazy. And if that's the case you might as well watch tv or play more video games because you probably aren't going to find success with your websites anyway - you have a hobby.
Two is what I'm going to talk about mostly here.
Just having an emphasis on Quality Content without doing much Keyword Research works more in the favor of those that have a well established presence already. They have already built their authority website, they have been building links for a long time, they have a following on their site (commentors ready to comment at the drop of a hat if it's a blog..) and in social circles.
Those individuals only need to post just about anything relevant and they'll have a storm of comments and people linking to that content; just for the fact they have authority in that niche. Yes, it still needs to be QUALITY and a little link bait never hurts, but their emphasis on keyword research really defaults to just talking about new, relevant and fresh topics in their niche that people are interested in.
Guess what? That takes time and work. What happens if you are just starting out or your development strategy is different. For instance, you are building networks of smaller, highly focused, niched websites that you have no interest to become an authority in.
The majority of those starting out online need to instead have more emphasis on Keyword Research. The quality content is a no brainer if you want that traffic to turn into something. So that everyone should be doing.
It's not enough to just spit out content though... although if you kick out 100s or 1000s of pages you will get lucky from time to time and find targeted traffic; I've used that strategy myself. But, it's my opinion coupling content creation with a good system to do Keyword Research and using quality tools to help in that endeavor is paramount. And it WILL maximize the efforts being put in.
While authorities have no problem ranking for a lot of stuff, non-authorities and those just starting out have to target those keywords that are easier to rank for. And depending on how competitive a niche is, using the available data and intelligence out there to help pinpoint good opportunities becomes more and more important.
There are certain exceptions again to this rule. If you are tackling new products and markets where fresh keyword opportunities are being born (that never existed or have barely been tapped) or you have sources that tell you what hot topics to target, then you can just go for it and launch the content and do a little SEO to bring in that traffic and make sales.
But otherwise, you need to seek those keyword opportunities which might include the long tail. You need to find phrases that have daily searches that are worth while spending time targeting AND have reasonable competition you can compete against and rank above.
I highly recommend in this case to take the time, follow certain criteria and use tools to speed up the process to determine things like:
- # of Daily Searches
- # of Competitors
- Commercial Intent
- PageRank of Competition
- Inbound Links
- Domain Age
And you need to determine how well optimized these sites are for the keywords you are looking at targeting. You will stand a much greater chance of winning some targeted visitors if you put in that work!
And you can adapt the #s to your strengths. If you do have a more established site (maybe you aren't an authority, but you have done a lot of SEO and have established yourself with inbounds etc..), you can go after more competitive keywords. If you have nothing... a brand new site... you need to focus on the weakest links WHICH might take longer to uncover, but it's worth your time.
So how you approach research and how much of an emphasis you have on research MUST be based on YOUR situation, experience and strengths.
As time progresses, you'll get better, your site will age, your inbounds will build, your authority will blossom and you can go after the more competitive stuff and you won't have to spend as much time in your Keyword Tools. Or you just keep building sites around the weaker links. Both strategies are profitable in time. A combination of both even better.
Sometimes it's easy to take the advice of experts and follow their 'Just Create Quality Content' advice, but understand their situation is not YOUR situation. It's very possible if you spend more time in the Keyword Tools finding those golden nugget opportunities you might see a BIG change in your business - more profits!
-Matt Levenhagen
List of Free Keyword Tools >> GS Free Keyword Tools List
Software I Recommend >> My #1 Go To Keyword and Competitive Analysis Tool Today is >> Market Samurai
Good points! It's very important to know what the objective of the site is, there are different parameters to follow if you are using your site to capitalize links than to sell products or to collect leads.
All this has to be taken into account before going to the trouble of ranking a keyword that will not be useful to the site's objective.
Great article!